Friday August 24, 2012

The proposed Northern Gateway pipeline is a controversial project that has divided communities and provinces. Calgary-based Enbridge wants to build a pipeline that would take crude from the oil sands, across northern British Columbia, and on to the port of Kitimat. After recent oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico and in Michigan, people living along the pipeline route aren't so keen on the project. In this documentary, producer Karin Wells speaks with the people of Hartley Bay, BC, about how the project might change their First Nations community.

Originally produced for The Sunday Edition by Karin Wells (more photos).

Friday August 17, 2012

This week, we visit a historically Black neighbourhood in Washington, DC. When Ethiopian businesses moved in, they caused some friction with African-Americans. But they also unearthed old alliances, from African-Americans fighting for Ethiopian independence in the 1930s, to surprising musical connections that can still be heard in local Ethiopian nightclubs.

Friday August 10, 2012

Cantonese Opera is a highly stylized art form that dates back perhaps eight hundred years and involves complex costumes, elaborate make-up and hair and formalized gestures. The story lines story lines are from Chinese history and legend along with a vocal style that has almost no common ground with the Western tradition. But the audience is aging, so now the emphasis is on creating a young audience comfortable with the conventions of Cantonese Opera.

Friday August 3, 2012

In the bad old days - and they weren't very long ago - women were barred from playing in professional orchestras. But back in 1940, the talented and daring Ethel Stark founded The Montreal Women's Symphony Orchestra, which eventually became the first-ever Canadian orchestra to play Carnegie Hall.